Issue #47, March 2, 2007

Making Google Your Own

by Victoria L. Cooper

Just when you thought web browsing couldn’t get any easier, it has. And once again, you have the smart people behind Google to thank. The birth of the Google homepage is the best thing since sliced bread. The founders of Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, met in 1995 at a Stanford University computer science class. Ironically, they found themselves arguing their differing viewpoints on many issues, except one – search engines. Since the company’s founding in 1998, Google has become such a large part of our culture that people use the company’s name as a verb. For example, each day at work I hear at least one person say, “hey, why don’t you google that?” or “he was googling your name and you’ll never believe …” In many ways, Google has made searching and browsing the Internet easy enough for every man, woman and child across the globe.

In case you don’t know exactly what the term “Google” means, it is a play on the word googol, which was coined by Milton Sirotta, nephew of American mathematician Edward Kasner. It refers to the number represented by the numeral 1 followed by 100 zeros. Google’s use of the term reflects the company’s mission to organize the immense, seemingly infinite amount of information available on the web.

First of all, Google’s email service, often referred to as Gmail, is great. I opened a Gmail account when I graduated college and I receive no spam or junk mail. I figured that, if I was going to be visiting www.google.com each day for research anyway, I might as well make my life easier and check my email there, too. Gmail provides a simple layout with a nice quick contact list on the left margin of the page, which allows you to have access to any of your friends’ email accounts with one simple click. Another feature that Gmail offers is Gchat, which enables anyone with Gmail to send instant messages (rapid-fire emails) to one another. Along with all of these great features, one of the best things that Google has to offer is its personalized homepage.

When you open an account with Google, there is list of services automatically available to you, one of them being your very own personalized homepage. On this page, you can view everything and anything from your incoming e-mail messages, CNN breaking news headlines and changes in the moon cycle, to a “how to” of the day, the weather and, of course, the latest celebrity gossip. You can add as much or as little content to your homepage as you want. Some other services that you could add include the top You Tube video of the day, horoscopes, world clocks, top recipes, games (like hangman or chess) and a calorie counter, for those of you who do that sort of thing.

The idea behind the Google homepage is to make our browsing-lives easier. It is interesting how the philosophy of simple and fun has carried through so many of Google’s services, including how Google treats its employees.

Google’s Headquarters are located in California on a mini-campus referred to as “the Googleplex.” This is where the magic takes place. The lobby is decorated with a piano, lava lamps, old server clusters and has a projection of search queries on the wall. The hallways are full of exercise balls and bicycles. Each employee has access to the corporate recreation center, which consists of a workout room, locker rooms, washers and dryers, a massage room, assorted video games, Foosball, a pool table and ping pong. In addition, there are snack rooms stocked with candy like gummy bears, toffee and licorice, fresh fruit and dozens of different types of fresh juices and coffee.

If you don’t think the people at Google are great yet, read on. In October of 2006, Google announced plans to install thousands of solar panels that will provide up to 1.6 megawatts of electricity, enough to satisfy approximately 30% of the Googleplex’s energy needs. When installed, the system will be the largest solar power construction on an American corporate campus and one of the largest systems of its kind in the world.

Google also encourages its employees to use “20% time.” Google engineers are encouraged to spend one day per week on a project or activity that interests them, in the hope that it will keep them creative. Google is really the closest thing the Web has to an ultimate answer machine. It’s inspiring to know that the service that connects us all in a fraction of a second also encourages its employees and customers to work hard, and play hard, too.